October 17, 2012

Why I Didn't Delete my Child's Photos from Facebook

When I received a note from my 2nd daughter asking me to delete all photos of her children from Facebook of course I agreed.

there have been some really disturbing cases on FB recently of people taking other peoples photos of children and posting them on pages...

She asked if I would be asking the same of others in regard to my newest daughter (aged 2 1/2), and I replied "based on what I know at this time - no".

Here are three reasons that, based on what I know at this time, I won't be asking anyone to delete photos of my daughter, nor restricting who can see them. I'll start with the least contentious and "work up":

Firstly, each day 250 million photos are loaded to Facebook, and it is estimated that there are currently more than 250 billion undeleted photos in the system. Therefore, if you have 1000 of your own photos in Facebook then a person will only have a 1/250000000th chance of finding your photos. Of course we don't know how many of the photos are made "Public" but it's still likely that even photo trolls will have a very low chance of ever coming across your own public photos.

The odds rise as your photos are shared, and of course as your Friends add photos of your children and they are shared. I think that it's logical to say that if all photos are shared equally then the odds of being found by a troll remain the same as if no "Public" photos were shared, in any case it's still a very remote chance. You can't cotrol your Friends but if you want to reduce the odds even more then just make your photos viewable only by Friends. I'm leaving mine Public for the time being.

Secondly, I enjoy sharing my photos of my daughter and seeing others enjoy them. I'm not ready to surrender that enjoyment to the photo trolls and have my actions dictated by them. The risks, as I perceive them, don't outweigh the enjoyment.

Thirdly, the most contentious reason. Facebook has generated a whole industry of journalists and many others who specialise in "Facebook Fear" stories (here's one from 2007).There's an associated set of people who flog Facebook pyscho-babble to the TV morning shows to feed their programming formula of fear, fashion, fads, fat, froth and cheap sympathy - for example Channel 7 (Australia) a perfect customer. The participants get their 15 minutes of fame, and for some it becomes addictive.

How is this relevant to my decision? Because it means that stories like the child troll story are going to emerge ad-infinitum. And certainly worse. Nothing is ever going to get better for Facebook because the "Facebook fear" industry has buyers. So if these stories worry you then for you things are only going to get worse. You might be best to quit Facebook now to avoid unnecessary worry.

For me, unless there is a totally reprehensible breach of faith by Facebook or a similarly reprehensible act of hacking of the information which I have in Facebook, then I will continue to use it in an open and public way. Facebook is what it is, and the Facebook Fear industry is what it is with its own agenda, and you have to weigh up the balance for yourself.

At this time, I don't intend to change anything about the way I use Facebook.